


i'd never sing of love if it does not exist

by mysteryfucker420



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aromantic Dirk Strider, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Baggage, I'm Bad At Tagging, Minor Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor John Egbert/Dave Strider, My First Fanfic, Self-Discovery, because i would die for these boys, dirk's questioning his romantic orientation and dave's the first person he tells, i'm also bad at descriptive writing so it's pretty dialogue heavy, idk if it counts as dialogue heavy but it's mostly dialogue so, this is just a headcanon dump tbh, wait is that a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 05:38:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18584866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteryfucker420/pseuds/mysteryfucker420
Summary: "Everyone experiences that kinda shit differently. It’s a wholly personal experience, and that’s exactly what makes it so awesome."Slowly, you put the iron into its holder, and lean forward on the metal table."What if…" you start before you can contemplate backing out. "What if.. I can’t experience that?"(Or in which Dirk is aromantic and talks to Dave about stuff and things.)





	i'd never sing of love if it does not exist

**Author's Note:**

> I was upset about the epilogue, so I decided to write something nice with some arospec Dirk.  
> I have no idea what I'm doing, this is my first fic and it's just ~2000 words of pure self-indulgence, just take it.  
> Also you can take Dave's crush any way bc he's one of those characters where any headcanon or ship is fair game, and I fucking love that. (Might write an aro Dave fic sometime in the future too - who knows!)

“Well, first of all, it’s not like how people romanticize it. People spin all this bullshit like “they make the room light up wherever they go”, and “you feel complete when you’re together”, and “time stops when you’re around them”-”

“You’d be able to notice that if it were true.” You mutter, face half-buried in your most recent project. It’s something that you’ve been working on for a while now, ever since you finished the game.

“Well yeah, that’s the point!” Dave continues pacing around your workshop. “And why would the stopping of time be a good thing anyway? Like shit man, some people really don’t get the logic behind it. If time stopped, you wanna know what you’d be able to do? Jack fucking squat, that’s what. Pretty much nothing would be able to function, you’d be able to talk to no one, things would stop growing, and not to mention-” You zone out slightly as he rambles on. You don’t mean to ignore him, of course, but it’s somewhat unavoidable with your attention divided like this. He knows this. He’s alright with it too. He doesn’t need to be heard, he just needs to feel listened to. He needs a reply where it counts here and there, but mostly, your bro just needs to ramble sometimes. You’d never want to stop him - it’s nice hearing him get so passionate about something, no matter the subject. Of course, you keep half an ear out, as always. It’s easy to tell when he’s coming to a stop. “-reading Wikipedia articles on time dilation and artistic anachronisms.”

“Past societies are very different from our own, and very difficult to get to know.” You work the wires through the metal rings, threading and twisting them naturally, before turning back to Dave, who’s looking at you with a confused look on his face. “Arthur Marwick.”

“Wait, you’ve actually read those Wikipedia articles?” You shrug, before grabbing your soldering iron once more.

“I had a whole lot of free time and a whole lot of internet to explore.” You don’t need to pay so much attention with either of these things, having done them both so often. You drift as you talk and solder. “I mostly went through articles relating to Philosophy - things like Animism, quantum mysticism, et cetera, but with websites like that, you just go from one page to another until you’re vacantly reading a 5,000-word article on vacuum fluorescent displays.

“Vocally fierce dialogue.” He adds.

“Very fervent distraction.” You turn back to him for a moment and raise an eyebrow, reminding him of the topic previously at hand. Dave blinks and shakes his head free of any distracting thoughts before the conversation veers onto the subject of fictional secret organizations.

“Right, so anyway, the movies are total bullshit. In real life, it’s more like…” He pauses. “It’s not so much that they light up the room, they make the room easier to manage. It’s not that they make you feel complete, it’s that they help you be a little better than you are by yourself. It’s not that time stops, it’s that any time spent with them is spent well because they’re there. Being in love isn’t a magical cure-all, it’s just…” He trails off, unable to find the exact words. “I dunno. But the thing is, it’s different for everyone. The way I feel it isn’t necessarily gonna be the same for you. Everyone experiences that kinda shit differently. It’s a wholly personal experience, and that’s exactly what makes it so awesome.”

You aren’t quite sure when you stopped moving. It was at some point while Dave was talking, you know that much, but the rest seems to have escaped you. Slowly, you put the iron into its holder, and lean forward on the metal table.

“What if…” you start before you can contemplate backing out. “What if.. I can’t experience that?” Your voice is soft, merging with the soft hum of the various electronics on the walls and tables, but easy enough to pick up against the sound of wind hitting the window. There’s a quiet moment where neither of you speaks. You think about turning around, but there’s no need. You already know the face your bro’s making - half Strider-stoicism, half intrigued. You go on. “I mean, if it’s a truly unique experience, then surely some people just wouldn’t experience it at all, right? Even if it’s not meant to be like that and people are supposed to be able to feel some sort of equivalent of whatever we consider to be “love” there’s always going to be some outliers, like how people are “supposed” to be straight or “supposed” to always be comfortable with the genitalia they’re born with or “supposed” to only be attracted to one gender or “supposed” to fall within a specific bullshit binary and hell while we’re on the subject what does that even say about people who are born blind or deaf or-”

“Dirk.” He snaps you out of the ramble with just a simple utterance of your name. You look down at your clenched hands, where your knuckles have gone white from the stress you put on them while talking. Gradually, you relax your arms and take a few steady breaths.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” The room goes silent once more. You can hear the distant ticking of a clock from the next room over. The sound merges uncomfortably with the tweeting of birds coming from your open window. Fed up with the sound and the stasis of this moment, you go over to shut it. “Can I… ask a question. Might be a little personal...”

“Shoot.”

“Weren’t you in love with Jake? I mean, if I remember correctly, you did date for a while...” You sigh, having thought about that a lot already, and turn to sit on the windowsill.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure I at least thought I loved him. I know that I have a preference for dudes in that sort of thing, that never took me too much effort to figure out. Men are hot, I like kissin’ ‘em, easy, sorted, got that down the second puberty hit. But Jake was just… the only guy available to talk to. Or at least, the only guy available to talk to that didn’t try to force me to draw weird baby cannibalism art of my friends.”

“Excuse the interruption but what the actual fuck?!” You chortle fondly at the memory.

“Yeah, that was weird. Not that I complained much. He was hella melodramatic about all that, it was fun to play along. Long story though. Ask some other time when I’m not trying to make an actual attempt at dealing with my emotions openly.”

“Okay???” Wow, he looks so confused. Luckily he takes a few breaths and nods back at you, a sign for you to continue.

“So yeah. I knew I liked dudes, Jake’s a dude and also physically attractive and fun to talk to, so I mean, obviously, I had a crush on him, right? Because clearly that’s how that kinda stuff works. Common knowledge.” Your hands flail around, exaggerating the sarcasm that drips from your words. Dave laughs, and the hard line of your mouth softens slightly - your equivalent of a smile.

“That’s fair. But to be honest, I think that’s a relatively common experience.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Like in school and stuff- uh. Well I mean you wouldn’t have known, really, having lived in post-apocalyptic future earth for the first 16 years of your life, but people would go up to you and ask “so who do you have a crush on?” and it’s like? Dude, what the fuck? I ain’t giving a single shit about crushes my dude, I gotta focus on important shit, like the economy, and how many crayons I can stuff in my mouth before a teacher catches me.”

“Very important research, I see.”

“Oh absolutely. So no one had time for crushes, but if you said that you didn’t have a crush they’d be like “Oh don’t worry, everyone has a crush! You can tell us! We won’t tell anyone!” and they wouldn’t give up until you gave them an answer, so you’d just pick whoever looked the prettiest, and you’d say “uh, Tiffany, I guess” and then they’d finally leave you alone, and then half the whole-ass school is screaming that you like Tiffany, and you don’t even like Tiffany that much? Like she’s okay, but she’s not exactly my type, y’know? We don’t even have anything in common, that relationship would straight-up crash and burn, and everyone knows it. But damn I’m not sure if anyone told the truth with that kinda shit. Crushes are weird anyway, but crushes in school? Shit’s crazy.”

“Sounds it.” You lean back for a second against the cool glass of the window as you think things through. The metaphorical gears in your head are whirring, trying to think of something more to bring up, but Dave beats you to it.

“Y’know, I don’t see why it would be a bad thing if you never fell in love, or couldn’t fall in love or whatever the fuck.”  
“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Dave starts pacing again, slower this time. “It’s one less thing to be worried about, I guess. And when it comes to you, less stuff to worry about could probably do wonders for your mechanical monstrosity of a brain. You’d be able to focus more on other things.” He starts leaning on the wall adjacent to the window you’re sat on. “Your robots, sure, and other real-life things, like mental health, and hell you could even get a couple more hobbies, you know we’ve got all the time in the world, but - dude - romantic relationships aren’t the only relationships that matter. You know that I would die for Rose, John, Jade, Karkat, the mayor, but I’m not romantically involved with any of them, am I?”

You smirk, raising a solitary eyebrow. “Romantically involved, no. Interested, I think, would be a better choice of-” He flushes nearly immediately at the mention of his crush.

“Shut your mouth. Besides, I’d take my several healthy friendships over a single romantic relationship any day of the week.” His head is turned more directly to yours now. “If you’re not getting busy with any romantic relationships, then you can always focus more on friends and family. And another thing!” Dave pushes himself off of the wall with a vigor that makes him stumble over his own feet for a second. He soon rights himself and turns to face you, bringing a finger up to point towards you accusingly. “There’s all this bullcrap talk about how if you’re not married by the age of 40 then you’re gonna die alone, and that’s just absolute shit! Like holy fuck, marriage is hardly related to a happy relationship! And “dying alone” what the fuck is that even supposed to mean?! Like you’re never gonna have friends because they’ll be way too busy fucking like rabbits with their spouse at the ripe old age of 90 to ever spend time with you? Yeah right, that shit’s a whole load of… just… shit!” The emotion on his face is, simply put, raw. Nothing like the rehearsed blankness the two of you usually demonstrate. It’s something reserved for only people that he cares about, and for a moment, you allow your heart to swell a little from the knowledge that you’re important enough to him for this. It shouldn’t be news to you, and technically, it’s not, but every time the realization hits is like the first time all over again. You’d do just about anything for him. He’s your bro. He’s your goddamn brother, and you love him so fucking much. You dwell on this for a second, as he catches his breath after ranting so loudly.

And more importantly, he’s right.

You already knew, in a sense. Living in a world where marriage doesn’t exist anymore means that you were never directly exposed to that kinda mentality. But on the other hand, living with the entire past of the human race at your disposal meant that you were indirectly exposed to it more than you realized at the time. Old tv shows and such where people got distressed over the prospect of dying a virgin, not ever getting married, and the like. It mostly dealt with heterosexual relationships, so you weren’t always that invested in them. It was white noise in the background of your mind. Barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, but constantly there.  
You bump your head back against the glass of the window.

“Yeah…” You take a few deep breaths, relishing in the moment of calm before the existential terror comes back. “Thanks, bro.” He smiles.

“Anytime.” He goes back to his place leaning against the wall.

…

Oh, there we go. There’s the existential dread of never being able to fall in love. What it means about you and the nature of your personality. Except for this time… this time it’s not so urgent. Yeah, you might be missing out on something. Sure. You could be missing out on the time of your life right now, missing out on a key life experience. But you look at Dave, and for a moment, you realize that you have bigger priorities right now.

You smile - a genuine thing, no mask of impassivity to cover it up - and stop worrying.

Life is good.


End file.
